Sam Raimi Isn’t Planning on Directing the Oz The Great and Powerful Sequel

Oz The Great and Powerful is now in theaters, arriving just after yesterday’s news that Walt Disney Pictures has brought aboard Mitchell Kapner to draft a sequel. In an interview with Bleeding Cool, however, director Sam Raimi reveals that he doesn’t plan on making a return visit to Oz.

“I havent planned on directing the sequel,” Raimi says. “I did leave some loose ends for another director if they want to make the picture… I was attracted to this story but I dont think the second one would have the thing I would need to get me interested.”

Inspired by the rich literary world of L. Frank Baum, Oz The Great and Powerful serves as a prequel of sorts to the first of Baum’s 14 fantasy novels, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” That project was most famously adapted as Victor Fleming’s 1939’s musical The Wizard of Oz. There’s no word yet on whether or not this proposed sequel might re-adapt that story, although there are certainly elements in the new film that hint at that possibility.